WindowViper

unstoppable evolution

Reviewed: 10-06-24

What an interesting mixture of actual science and pull-it-out-of-his-ass fiction! I'm interested in the accuracy of the science but even more interested in the plausibility of the fiction. The one principle that comes through loud and clear: The unstoppable power of evolution.

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seems like the condensed version

Reviewed: 11-14-20

I am a big fan of Alan Furst. I think I have at least the Audible version of every single one of his novels. But it seems like he may have run out of steam. This one is short, which is OK especially since the length is included in the description, but it gives the distinct impression that it's the condensed version of a longer novel. I'm not saying that there is an uncondensed version -- apparently not. But it often jumps ahead in a way that seems like part of the story is missing.

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needs a better narraor

Reviewed: 01-12-18

Would you listen to The Late Show again? Why?

No. I never read the same book more than once.

What did you like best about this story?

Michael Connelly. Everything he writes is good.

What do you think the narrator could have done better?

Think more about the plot as she narrates. Nearly always she speaks in a monotonous cadence with a downward ending to each sentence (or sometimes to each phrase), occasionally mumbling the word most important to the meaning. That is probably just a bad habit she could perhaps unlearn.

I'm not sure that she read the novel, or at least paid enough attention to it, before narrating it. Sometimes I got the impression she was trying to meet a deadline, rushing through at a pace not consonant with the plot.

Her voice is clear and it sounds like the protagonist might sound, so she may have good potential as a narrator. But she makes no attempt to vary her pitch or anything else that would enable the listener to distinguish between the characters. Often I had to listen to passages more than once to discern who was saying what.

This narrator could learn so much from George Guidall.

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we have squandered the Reagan Revolution

Reviewed: 07-17-16

Almost two decades later, that should be obvious. More government, way more, less freedom. Instead of defending ourselves against our enemies, we try not to hurt their feelings.

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Bring back George Guidall!

Reviewed: 06-10-15

Did Daniel Gerroll do a good job differentiating all the characters? How?

George Guidall has narrated most of the Furst novels but this one is an exception. Daniel Gerroll pronounces his words clearly, the most important skill in a narrator, but he just doesn't seem to get in the story. He has an annoying habit of allowing his sentences to fade away at the end. Take this one, for example:

"Forget it, at least for the day. But it didn't forget him."

I don't know whether or not Alan Furst put "it" and "him" in italics, but the intent of the sentence is clearly "But IT didn't forget HIM." Nevertheless, Gerroll's "him" falls off at the end of the sentence. Is he not paying attention to the meaning of what he is reading? Or does his vocal energy simply fade as he moves from the beginning to the end of each sentence? I don't know, but Guidall adds so much meaning, entirely appropriate to the story, to everything he reads. Gerroll doesn't.

George Guidall has narrated hundreds of books. So he is in no way limited to Furst's novels. I don't know how he finds enough time in a lifetime to narrate so many. I just hope he doesn't stop. I would listen to almost anything he reads.

Other reviewers comment on the story, so I'll leave this one, focused on the narrator, at that.

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1 person found this helpful

A conflict of labels

Reviewed: 11-02-13

Would you consider the audio edition of A Conflict of Visions to be better than the print version?

It really does help in making sense of conflicting political ideologies.

Any additional comments?

The most important thing I would say to anyone who reads this book is not to be put off by the terminology. Sowell is brilliant, and he has, I believe, discovered and articulated the key attribute, what he calls the conflicting "visions," distinguishing two ideological camps, labeled (inappropriately in my opinion) as the "constrained" and the "unconstrained."

The conflicting "visions" are not merely a set of opinions or points of view. The weakness and vagueness of that label, as well, are misleading and unfortunate. Sowell's "vision" is like a lens, through which a person with one vision or the other sees some things but is essentially blind to others.

The "unconstrained" are not constrained by the market, human nature, the words in the Constitution, or reality. Instead, the best and the brightest among them, being uniquely smart enough to imagine a better world, decide for the rest of us how we must behave in order to achieve that better world. They are the "surrogate decision-makers," as Sowell likes to call them, the Platonic philosopher kings known in the real world as dictators, tyrants, arrogant bureaucrats and activist judges. The result is a libertarian's nightmare, and this is where the terminology seems inappropriate.

The most visible attribute of the "unconstrained" is their obsession with a pernicious form of equality, strained to the point where those who achieve less must be made equal by means of transfers of wealth funding subsidies. The unconstrained reject the notion that such transfers, even when voluntary, constitute charity, believing instead that the beneficiaries are entitled, by notions of "social justice," to receive whatever it takes, from anyone possessing it, to make them equal.

The rest of us, in this imagined better world designed by the unconstrained, are severely constrained by the decisions made by our surrogates. Those of us who find themselves in Sowell's "constrained" camp, constrained by their acceptance of human nature for what it is, prefer a world in which individuals are free to make their own decisions, with limited constraints provided by the rule of law and free markets, not surrogates. Such freedom comes much closer to the sense of "unconstrained," in my view, than Sowell's version of "unconstrained." The terms "free" and "unconstrained" are virtually synonymous, in fact, so it seems odd that there would be less freedom in the unconstrained world than in the constrained. (Sowell explains how the unconstrained define "freedom" differently from the way I would define it, thus illuminating the source of that oddity.)

So it is important to keep in mind that Sowell's constrained/unconstrained dichotomy refers to political leaders and the architects of a society and not to its inhabitants.

Sowell takes great pains to be even-handed, avoiding advocacy of one vision or the other, and to explain that his labels do not fit well with known political persuasions. It should be clear that I am firmly in the "constrained" camp, so I am not similarly hobbled by the duty to be neutral. I believe, for example, that libertarians, true libertarians anyway, belong just as firmly in the "constrained" camp, although Sowell's pains include an effort to show that both visions are represented among libertarians. I would also say that the current (since 2008) political powers in the United States, both presidential and (at least until the 2010 mid-term elections) legislative are firmly in the "unconstrained" camp. Sowell is, of course, correct (in writing long before 2008) in pointing out the lack of ideological purity (or purity of "vision") in the political movements of our time. But in doing that, he actually weakens the very point he is making so well -- that his concept of those two conflicting visions goes far in explaining why people of differing political persuasions just don't seem to see the same things.

Labeling aside, Sowell's point is well worth the effort to understand and to apply it to the real world. This book is well worth reading.

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7 people found this helpful

the narrator is OK

Reviewed: 09-14-13

Any additional comments?

The narrator, Michael Healy, has been severely criticized by other listeners. I could find fault with his performance too. His pronunciation of German words is terrible, which is forgivable in a foreigner, though I can't imagine how he gets "Luther" out of "Lothar" and not only because the "h" is not pronounced in that context in German. But he is certainly not "droning," as one reviewer put it. I, too, was somewhat put off at the beginning, but I think that was only because his style was different from the earlier, excellent narrators. Or maybe it just took him a while to get into the story. In any case, he did get into it and made the story interesting.

Regarding the story itself, it becomes clear that Russell (and probably Downing too) is an ardent socialist. As a free market capitalist sharply opposed to socialism, I was offended by the moral equivalency drawn between Soviets and Americans. Although that comes out to some degree in earlier novels, it is the principal theme of this one. That was ideologically offensive to me, but don't let it turn you off. If you are not a fan of socialism already, you learn a lot about how those of that persuasion think and, most importantly, how that played into mid-20th century history.

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2 people found this helpful

plausible hypothesis

Reviewed: 08-12-04

Fact and fiction are eerily matched and juxtaposed in an extremely plausible alternative to the paths actually taken by the two armies. A single spark of inspiration, in a single moment, is all that it takes to move history in a decisively different direction. All that follows that moment is quite plausible, even likely, given what is known of the personalities, fears and abilities of the generals involved.

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4 people found this helpful